@putorti

Recruiting Good Designers for Startups

782 pitches 2,980 designers 2,980+ connections

Understand what makes you uniqueUnderstand your needsHave a large pipelineWhat can you do for the designer?Learn the basics yourself and believeGo behind the portfolioNo ego, lots of empathyFind personal motivatorsSocialize with your entire teamHire early

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Pitching

Closing

Identifying

Understand what makes you unique

1Pitching

Kayak for Apparel

JetSetter for Beaches

Turbotax for Relationships

Klout for Video Games

“We’re the next Facebook.”

“Like Quicken but better”

Mint for Personal Finance

This works for not a designer.

Understand your needs first

2Pitching

“Seed-stage startup looking for rockstar designer to sketch wireframes and design beautiful mockups. You’ll be responsible

for crafting our logo and brand and writing UI copy. Must know how to run

usability studies, prototype and write production-ready HTML and CSS.”

http://www.designstaff.org/articles/hiring-a-designer-2011-11-01.html

Braden Kowitz

“Seed-stage startup looking for rockstar engineer to write Javascript and all

Python / Ruby on the backend. You’ll be responsible for cassandra, puppet, and SQL, and training our junior coders. Must handle test coverage / QA, and

write production-ready HTML and CSS.”

• Interaction design for functionality, flows, usability.

• Visual design for feel, emotional impact, trust, entertainment.

• Front-end development should be implementation for speed, responsiveness, to work as expected.

Does your entire team agree on needs?

Have a large pipeline

3Pitching

• Many recruiters on contingency

• Designer communities / directories

• Use your social networks

• Design schools

• Creative agencies

• Where are designers interested in your space?

• elegant.ly• behance.net• tinyproj.com• carbonmade.com• pick.im• dribbble.com/designers• forrst.com/people/directory• www.krop.com/cdbsearch• zerply.com/find/designer• builditwith.me• folyo.me/designers

http://www.quora.com/Web-Design/Are-there-any-top-designer-directories-for-start-ups

“I want someone from Mint or Twitter.”

What can you do for the designer?

4Pitching

“The product is done, it just needs UX.”

Designers want unique challenges.

Designers want to be inspired.

Designers want a seat at the table.

Designers want to talk to users.

Designers want the latitude to get it

done.

Learn the basics yourself, and believe

5Pitching

Go behind the portfolio

6Identifying

Visual is a gut feel.

Can they write copy?

Design thinkingThe essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.

Start with the problem, ask why until you can’t

anymore.

Critical thinking is good, too much process is not.

No ego, lots of empathy.

7Identifying

Not afraid to prove designs in the real world.

Focused on the users, and little else.

Find personal motivators

8Closing

Ask about family

Find risk tolerance

Socialize with the entire team

9Closing

Hire early

10Closing

Understand what makes you uniqueUnderstand your needsHave a large pipelineWhat can you do for the designer?Learn the basics yourself and believeGo behind the portfolioNo ego, lots of empathyFind personal motivatorsSocialize with your entire teamHire early

12345678910

Pitching

Closing

Identifying